90% of TN engg courses do not have AICTE accreditation
Amrutha Varshinii
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Chennai:
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Students' Job, PG Prospects In Question
An engineering course is the
primary benchmark for companies recruiting candidates with technical
qualifications but fewer than 8% of engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu,
which churns out graduates by the thousands, offer National Board of
Accreditation (NBA)-approved courses. Of the 650 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, in
cluding more than 540 colleges affiliated to Anna University, not a single course offered by 600 colleges has NBA accreditation.
All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the central body under the Union HRD ministry that oversees technical education nationwide, established NBA specifically to grant engineering colleges course-specific accreditation.
But a majority of engineering institutions in the state have long flouted the NBA stamp. NBA has accredited only 220 of around 3,000 courses (around 7%) that deemed and state-affiliated engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu offer.
Experts say this will have an adverse impact on graduates from engineering colleges in the state, restricting their employment opportunities in an increasingly competitive job market and their chances of admission to premier colleges abroad for postgraduate degrees. “National Board of Accreditation is entirely outcome-based and has done away with the old system of ranking based on students' grade point averages (GPAs),“ NBA accreditation team chairman G P Prabhukumar said. “It prescribes a comprehensive list of several parameters that each course must to fulfil in order to be graded. If an institution wants civil engineering [course approval], it has to show grades, projects, placements, professional performance of students, faculty research, etc for that course.“
“An institution has to score a minimum of 600 on 1,000 points in the assessment stage to receive a three-year accreditation period from NBA,“ he said. “ A score of 750 would extend this to six years. But colleges that don't meet the standards often circumvent this.“
Prabhukumar attributes colleges giving accreditation the go-by to the profitability of set ting up engineering colleges, leading to their proliferation over recent years.
Experts say a lack of course accreditation will lower the employability of students. Anna University former vice chancellor M Anandakrishnan said most engineering colleges only have NAAC accreditation.NAAC assesses and grades the quality of an institution on the whole and does not make course-specific evaluations.
“Recruiters prefer students with accredited courses, especially now with engineering jobs being at a premium,“ Anandakrishnan said, adding that for students aspiring to postgraduate degrees abroad, in universities of their choice, accreditation could be a make-or-break factor.
In several countries, he said, it is a legal requirement to hire only students who have completed accredited courses and are from approved institutes. That way , he said, is the only way for companies to ensure quality in recruitment of engineers.
All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the central body under the Union HRD ministry that oversees technical education nationwide, established NBA specifically to grant engineering colleges course-specific accreditation.
But a majority of engineering institutions in the state have long flouted the NBA stamp. NBA has accredited only 220 of around 3,000 courses (around 7%) that deemed and state-affiliated engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu offer.
Experts say this will have an adverse impact on graduates from engineering colleges in the state, restricting their employment opportunities in an increasingly competitive job market and their chances of admission to premier colleges abroad for postgraduate degrees. “National Board of Accreditation is entirely outcome-based and has done away with the old system of ranking based on students' grade point averages (GPAs),“ NBA accreditation team chairman G P Prabhukumar said. “It prescribes a comprehensive list of several parameters that each course must to fulfil in order to be graded. If an institution wants civil engineering [course approval], it has to show grades, projects, placements, professional performance of students, faculty research, etc for that course.“
“An institution has to score a minimum of 600 on 1,000 points in the assessment stage to receive a three-year accreditation period from NBA,“ he said. “ A score of 750 would extend this to six years. But colleges that don't meet the standards often circumvent this.“
Prabhukumar attributes colleges giving accreditation the go-by to the profitability of set ting up engineering colleges, leading to their proliferation over recent years.
Experts say a lack of course accreditation will lower the employability of students. Anna University former vice chancellor M Anandakrishnan said most engineering colleges only have NAAC accreditation.NAAC assesses and grades the quality of an institution on the whole and does not make course-specific evaluations.
“Recruiters prefer students with accredited courses, especially now with engineering jobs being at a premium,“ Anandakrishnan said, adding that for students aspiring to postgraduate degrees abroad, in universities of their choice, accreditation could be a make-or-break factor.
In several countries, he said, it is a legal requirement to hire only students who have completed accredited courses and are from approved institutes. That way , he said, is the only way for companies to ensure quality in recruitment of engineers.
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